A New Boss For Dan Rather?

January 13, 1985|Sunday Call-Chronicle

The effort by North Carolina Sen. Jesse Helms and like-minded conservative investors who have launched a campaign designed to control the content of CBS radio and television news programs by gaining stockholder control of the network has all the earmarks of high farce. As the scenario unfolds, however, the seeds of tragedy emerge. It is these seeds and their potential for growth that commands our attention.

The success of the plan as outlined by the senator and his constituent organizations - Fairness in Media and the National Congressional Club investors to buy enough CBS shares to put them in the director's chair. Once there, Sen. Helms & Co. believe they will be able to purge the network newscasts and newscasters of what they consider to be the network's "liberal bias" in its coverage of "political events, personages and views."

A letter bearing Sen. Helm's signature urges conservative investors to buy up CBS stock so they can "become Dan Rather's boss." Rather, who presents "The CBS Evening News," has been the target of conservatives for what they generally perceive is his Eastern liberal bias which manifests itself specifically in his anti-Reagan slant to news coverage.

It is a simple matter to dismiss Helms's attempt to capture control of CBS by citing the dollar figure - about $1 billion - and the number of shares - 15 million - necessary to gain paper control of the broadcasting and entertainment enterprise. What is not easy to dismiss, however, is the boldness of method with which this group believes it can influence public opinion by controlling the news. This has been tried before, notably in the late 1940s and early 1950s, when a blacklist of entertainers and newscasters made its devilish rounds in Radio City and Hollywood and Vine. Only in the last decade or so has the industry begun to emerge from the shadows of blackmail and deceit of those days. Indeed, every now and again vestiges of those times return, when this actress or that writer is denied employment because of political beliefs that are unpopular to some organization.

In the six decades that Americans have given space in their homes first to radio, and later to television, they have been blessed with the most effective device ever invented to display their displeasure when offended by broadcasters. First it was known as a knob attached to a radio set. Later, it took the form of a push button. By turning a knob or pushing a button, the listener can tune out what offends him.

But Sen. Helms & Co. aren't content with that. They want more. They want to sit in the cat bird seat and dispense their brand of political philosophy by controlling programming. We've heard that kind of broadcasting before. It has always originated in countries where the price of dissent from the party view is destruction or death.